[gbin]

So clearly this is again an airline using a rule as a "proxy" for something else they want.

Like no chewing tobacco... Yeah it is gross but it is probably not a safety issue.

[mutt2016]

Flying is among the most dreadful activities I do. The whole thing is unsettling from the moment I pull up to the airport.

This is one of many absolutely ridiculous things the airline industry has enforced.

But.. I must fly places, so I just suffer like the rest.

[bombcar]

Note that voip calls are prohibited even though you can get internet access. This is because of annoying other customers, not because of safety.

[yellow_postit]

Wouldn’t it also be bandwidth consumption on a limited connection?

[fphhotchips]

Perhaps on the upload but download bandwidth can seemingly deal with a plane full of people streaming Netflix these days, so that's not an issue.

[anu7df]

Netflix on a plane? I have never seen that. Which onboard wifi allows that? Perhaps you are thinking of movies delivered via wifi, but the content is streamed from the plane itself.

[fphhotchips]

Qantas has been able to do Netflix/Youtube/whatever on a plane with free wifi for several years. I'm not talking about onboard entertainment, which is a separate thing with a separate app (which is, on the domestic flights where free wifi is offered, largely obsolete at this point). It's not without momentary buffering issues, and I will tend to download things in advance for that reason, but 99% of the time it's pretty good.

[bpye]

I’ve been able to stream video on an Air Canada flight from Vancouver to London, afaik it’s the same GoGo satellite service that seemingly everyone else has.

[bombcar]

Yeah they explicitly allowed movie streaming from basically any site but not voip.

There’s no way they had all the YouTube cached on the olane